


A Noncomprehensive History of Yuletide Plants

by PuppiesRainbowsSadism



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Implied/Referenced Abuse, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mistletoe, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21746998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppiesRainbowsSadism/pseuds/PuppiesRainbowsSadism
Summary: Sometimes Aziraphale's mind wanders at the worst times. At the moment, he's thinking about mistletoe. Well, holly too, and ivy a little bit. Poinsettias are mentioned at one point -- but no, he's thinking about mistletoe.Meanwhile, Crowley is waiting for some kind of response.---"Aziraphale had always had a love of stories. It wasn’t about what form they came in, although books were certainly easier to collect. He tried to listen in each time, but couldn’t parse out much, besides what he could assume were names.Where was he going with this? Right, mistletoe."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	A Noncomprehensive History of Yuletide Plants

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for a VERY brief mention of some potential transphobia and the implication of domestic abuse in one memory. At one point, it's implied that someone will die violently, but not shown. I gave this fic a T rating to be safe. Shoot me a message if you need a more detailed warning.
> 
> Also, Aziraphale exibits some racing, rambling thoughts and jumps to conclusions in a way that can be attributed to a number of mental illnesses. I was going for a bit of PTSD. As far as I can tell, he is very self aware and exibits no other symptoms in this fic.
> 
> Finally, I'm not an expert in literally anything, but I did more research than necessary. This is also unbetaed. If I made any sort of mistake, please let me know!

For whatever reason, his first thought was of the druids. They sure did love their mistletoe, didn’t they? Especially when it grew on an oak tree, for whatever reason. Aziraphale never really bothered to ask why. They would harvest it with golden sickles, catch it in a white cloth so it wouldn’t hit the ground, and sacrifice two white bulls for the occasion. It was magical to them. They’d hang it in their homes to ward off lightning strikes. Or was that the vikings? It was also said to work miracles, especially where fertility was concerned.

The druids were not special in that respect. Many peoples believed mistletoe to be an aphrodisiac, or able to cure impotence or increase fertility. Humans across the globe took one look at the white berries and decided it resembled their anatomy enough to be magical. People have always been people.

On the other hand, it was fascinating how many traditions could surround one thing -- one small, parasitic thing such as mistletoe. Yes, many had to do with sex or romance, but it manifested in different ways. Some people kissed under it -- that was perhaps the most common. Ages ago, young women would sometimes put sprigs under their pillows as they slept, hoping to dream of the man they would marry.

Not seventy years ago, he learned a new one, right here in London.

It was a Christmas party, if he recalled correctly, some time during the sixties. Despite what anyone else might think, Aziraphale rather loved the sixties -- flash, yes, but also a transitory period. Well, every point in time was transitory, but this one stood out as the youth were starting to get a taste of freedom, and many decided they couldn’t get enough.

This Christmas party, though, was important for another reason. Aziraphale never really attended such things unless he had an assignment there, and that he did. Much like many of his assignments, it involved one person doing (or not doing) one thing in order to fulfil some divine plan. He didn’t know what exactly that was, but it left a bad taste in his mouth nonetheless.

This was one of the few assignments he explicitly failed. It wasn’t the forces of good and evil cancelling out, and it wasn’t being thwarted by “that wily old serpent.” He failed. Not deliberately -- not yet -- but he didn’t exactly try to succeed either.

When he made out his report to Heaven, he chalked it up to free will and a dash of witchcraft. Gabriel came down in no short order to give him an earful about it -- there was no such thing as free will, not where they were concerned.

But -- his assignment. Maria Roper and Luke Martin. With a combination of rose-coloured goggles and societal pressure to settle down while she was young, Maria was considering marriage. (Not that it would have been her place to propose, mind. Not in that time. But if Luke proposed, she was considering what her answer would be.) Aziraphale’s job was to make sure she said yes, when that time came. He was sure it was for some greater good, but he also wasn’t completely oblivious. It was obvious to everyone but Maria that Luke was probably the worst thing to happen to her.

(He still thought about Maria sometimes and wondered what happened to her. He considered looking into it more than once, but if he searched up every person throughout history he often wondered about, he would never get anything else done.)

He’d kept eyes on her all night, but kept to himself, his back to a wall and a glass in his hand. Unsurprisingly, Crowley found his way to Aziraphale’s side. He typically did in such situations.

Or, no -- it was she, then, wasn’t it?

Yes, it had to have been. He remembered her commenting on it: “You might want to make a few changes if you want to get close to Maria.”

Aziraphale had scoffed at the implication, but didn’t deny it.

“Seriously. We’re getting together after the party, in her backyard.”

“Oh, _really_ , Crowley!”

“Not like _that_ !” she hissed. “ _We_! A bunch of the girls. Kitty knows some kind of ritual to predict marital happiness.”

(Kitty Muldrow: Not her given name to be sure, but one she’d adopted out of convenience. One of Maria’s friends who ran with the same crowd as Luke. She seemed genuine enough, from what little Aziraphale had seen of her.)

That piqued Aziraphale’s interest. “Oh?”

Crowley nodded, taking a sip of her drink. “They say if you burn some mistletoe, you’ll know if you’ll have a happy marriage or . . . “ she trailed off, tilting her head meaningfully.

“I suppose you’ll be showing her what you want, then?”

“Oh, of course. Would you pass up an opportunity like this?”

Aziraphale ignored the question. “And what will you be showing her, exactly?”

Crowley shrugged but grew sober. “The truth.”

The truth. Right. Aziraphale could see the signs just as clearly as anyone else.

“What is your goal, then?” he asked with more than a little maliciousness.

Crowley, however, seemed to deflate. “You don’t want to know, angel.”

“Surely Hell doesn’t want them together.”

“They don’t. But if they do . . . I have other orders.”

That was certainly odd. Their assignments didn’t always align, but when they did, it was typically to the same end. Aziraphale didn’t like to think too hard about it, even now.

In any case, Crowley looked stricken. It wasn’t like her to play by the rules -- she was the one who suggested the Arrangement, after all -- but her hesitation was odd to say the least.

Anyway, here’s the long and short of it: The ritual is simple. All one has to do is burn a bit of mistletoe. If the fire burns steady, the burner will have a long and happy marriage. If the flame flickers or struggles, the opposite is true.

Crowley, ever the dramatic soul, kicked it up a notch.

Moisture in the leaves made the mistletoe whistle as it burned, although it sounded much more like a woman screaming. The sudden heat caused the berries to burst, although they sounded much more like gunshots. Church bells tolled in the distance, even though it was a quarter of twelve, and in context of everything else, they sounded like funeral bells. This all happened within a few moments, as the flame encasing the mistletoe flickered wildly as if buffeted by the wind, despite the still night.

Aziraphale recognised it as a thoroughly realistic prediction regardless of the dramatics.

All of the young women were thoroughly spooked. Even Crowley gave a believable performance, just before excusing herself.

“That was a bit much, don’t you think?” Aziraphale asked, catching up easily. Crowley didn’t even look surprised, and certainly didn’t stop for him.

“I embellished a bit. Are you complaining?”

He wasn’t, and he hoped his silence at the time said as much.

“What am I supposed to say to Gabriel?” Aziraphale complained. “A sprig of mistletoe convinced her not to marry her boyfriend?”

“Never underestimate the power of anything, especially mistletoe,” Crowley said with an amazing amount of confidence, considering it was half nonsense and apropos of nothing.

“What’s that?”

“We only kiss under the mistletoe because a god died by it,” Crowley griped right back. “Remember?”

It had certainly struck a bell at the time, but he didn’t actually remember until after they went their separate ways.

Now that he thought about it -- where did he first hear that? The kissing-under-the-mistletoe tradition? It must have been Scandinavia -- or Norway, now -- certainly no earlier. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure Crowley was there too. Yes, he was certain about it actually, because he remembered the word _ergi_ \-- one of the few Old Norse words he knew, and one of the few he rather would not.

Whatever Crowley’s mission had been -- something about burning churches, he was sure -- had him presenting as a local shaman of sorts, a _seidberendr_ , as they called him, none too kindly. From what Aziraphale understood (which, admittedly, wasn’t much), whatever it was that Crowley did was generally considered a woman’s job. Aziraphale didn’t know why Crowley was there or why he’d chosen such a conspicuous cover story, nor did he ask. He suspected it had something to do with Crowley considering human concepts of gender as his own personal sand box.

(He recalled asking, at the time, whether _seidberendr_ was another recognised gender or a derogatory term. Crowley had offered a dry smile and asked why it couldn’t be both.)

Regardless, Aziraphale had found himself quite lost, in the metaphorical sense. Ever since the whole Tower of Babel thing, he had difficulty understanding some of these new languages. He thought he might have been able to understand any of them, given his celestial nature, but apparently that wasn’t one of the gifts he had been bestowed.

(Could he have used a miracle to understand any language? Certainly. Was he going to? Not if he didn’t have to. It would have to be quite a large miracle, considering duration, and Aziraphale preferred to learn languages the human way, when he cared to learn at all.)

Point being, there were some words he could parse out, being close enough to the one language or the handful of foreign words he knew, but for the most part, he hardly understood anything. There were luckily a few locals who had picked up some English, and then, there was luckily Crowley.

Where was he going with this? Right, mistletoe.

In the community Crowley had been associating with, there were quite a few young ladies, a smattering of young men, and a handful of small children. After dinner each night, they huddled around the fire, and the adults told the children stories.

Aziraphale had always had a love of stories. It wasn’t about what form they came in, although books were certainly easier to collect. He tried to listen in each time, but couldn’t parse out much, besides what he could assume were names.

This night in particular, Aziraphale had asked one of the young women a question, and she had smiled and said she had a story just for it.

Naturally, he asked Crowley to translate.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Honestly, you didn’t think to learn anything about the culture or the _language_ \-- “

“I hardly had the time!” he hissed indignantly.

“ _Hardly had the time_ \-- sure.”

“Well, what’s she saying?”

“She’s telling you the story of Baldur’s death.”

“Baldur. Should I know who that is?”

“Probably not, no. Being a pagan god and all.”

“Ah.”

Crowley said nothing, clearly waiting for Aziraphale’s curiosity to get the better of him. Aziraphale didn’t even try to hold back. “Well? Will you translate for me or not?”

Crowley sighed but clearly wasn’t too put-upon. “Once upon a time -- “

“Oh, really.”

“There’s this bloke Baldur the Beautiful. He’s a god, everyone loves him. Well, just about -- we’ll get there.. He starts getting these dreams predicting his own death. His mum gets scared and goes down to Earth -- Midgard, by the way -- and talks to every plant, animal, rock, what have you and makes them promise not to kill her son. Well, she forgot to talk to mistletoe about it, and this other god Loki, real pain in the arse, figures that out and kills Baldur with a dart made out of mistletoe.”

“Goodness!”

“Well, alright, he doesn’t do it himself. He tricks Baldur’s brother into doing it.”

“That’s worse!” Aziraphale complained, realising too late that something had changed in Crowley’s voice, and this was not the time for teasing banter.

“Too right. Long story short, Baldur died, and his mum, Frigg was her name, decided that mistletoe would be a symbol of peace and friendship, and she kisses anyone who passes underneath.”

There was a sort of tense silence, just for a moment, when no one spoke. Even the children were completely silent.

“That’s it, then?” Aziraphale prodded gently.

“Well, I did say ‘long story short.’”

“I’m certainly glad that, er . . . “ He turned to address the woman. “Thank you for the story,” he enunciated. “And I’m glad this, er, Frigg was able to forgive the mistletoe, but that doesn’t exactly answer my question.”

That’s right, he’d had a question. What was his question?

Crowley rolled his eyes again before translating for her. Her face lit up, and she said something back, gesturing to the mistletoe hanging over the door.

“Mistletoe is magic.” Crowley explained, his voice teasing once more, a wry smile just barely gracing his lips. “It keeps spirits and demons away.”

“Angel?” Crowley started, tentatively, startling Aziraphale out of his thoughts, but only for a moment.

He wasn’t holding mistletoe at all, actually. It was plastic, and most definitely holly. _Ilex aquifolium_ . Or was it _Ilex opaca_ ? It was definitely _Ilex_ something. Either way, he knew holly when he saw it. They used to decorate churches and homes with it for Saturnalia. Well, the few people that could get away with it.

Lord, what he wouldn’t give to remember more of Saturnalia. He definitely remembered the holly, though. And the ivy. He recalled commenting on both before he got completely sloshed -- remembered Crowley saying, “Good wine needs no bush,” the first time Aziraphale heard the phrase but certainly not the last.

He had been right, too. The best wine was not advertised with bushels of ivy, but by word of mouth. That was why what he remembered best was holly and ivy.

Now, Aziraphale gets the phantom of a headache any time he so much as hears the phrase.

Oh! wasn’t there just a delightful song about them too? He didn’t hear it much anymore these days, but it was one of his favourites back in the day. It was so beautiful. Oh, when had he last heard it? It wasn’t long ago -- well, not by his standards.

Scotland, maybe? Or Wales? Not off the Isles, surely, and not more than a thousand years ago. Likely within a few hundred.

The trapper’s son, that’s right. He was in the church choir and was practising his harmonies. Meanwhile, the trapper himself was trying to teach him about the uses of both holly and ivy.

“Birdlime.” he was saying, while his son mumbled _“The holly and the ivy / when they are both full grown . . ._ “

“Ye can use birdlime te catch birds.”

“It’s in the name,” Aziraphale encouraged.

“Exactly! Ye boil the holly bark ‘n slap it on a branch. Next bird that lands there gets stuck!”

Aziraphale frowned but didn’t say anything. It seemed awfully inhumane, but what did he know? He wasn’t a trapper.

“It’s rather indiscriminate, isn’t it?” he asked. “What if a bird lands there that you don’t want?”

The trapper shrugged. “You either take it anyway or toss it aside and wait for another.”

Later, he sat in the church while the choir sang _The holly bears a bark / as bitter as any gall / and Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ / for to redeem us all_ and sent a pot of poinsettias to the church.

That’s another interesting plant, but no, he’s still on holly.

Birdlime. Awfully inhumane. He wondered if it was still used these days. It wasn’t as if he was ever an expert about such things, but with the push to ban plastic, he couldn’t imagine birdlime was still strictly legal in England.

It wasn’t as if that was the only thing holly was used for, back in the day, anyway. His thoughts always drifted to the worst things. We kiss under the mistletoe because a beloved god was murdered by it, and holly is used to trap birds.

It was toxic to humans, holly, but not to birds. Ironic, then, that it should be used to trap birds and heal humans.

The sheer number of cultures that used holly, and the sheer number of ailments it was said to cure -- fevers, bloating, joint pain, indigestion, jaundice, congestion . . . . Where to even start? His brain stalled, for just a fraction of a fraction of a second.

“It’s just a kiss, angel,” Crowley said softly, in the present day, and Aziraphale snapped back once more. “Don’t overthink it.”

“You could have just asked,” he said, at a loss for anything else.”

“This is me asking,” Crowley pointed out, surprisingly gentle.

Aziraphale recognised that, of course. That Crowley asking anything of him -- especially in regards to _them_ \-- was monumental. That the society they chose to live in dictated that two people standing under the mistletoe should kiss -- it was standard practise, and hardly needed to be asked aloud. Still.

He thought of the Christmas party, of poor Maria and the dozens of other young women there. He thought of the mistletoe hanging over the door, people pulling berries off. “It’s bad luck if I say no,” he parrotted dozens of women in his memory, aiming for flippant and missing by a mile.

Crowley looked like he was considering it. “Alright, then forget it,” he said, lowering the arm holding the fake holly over them. “I take it back. No harm done.”

Aziraphale caught his wrist before it fell completely, a lump in his throat. He had no reservations about kissing Crowley, but his reservations about other things sometimes cropped up at the most inopportune times, when they weren’t even necessarily relevant.

Call him stuffy or prudish, but anyone would find that unlearning millenia of conditioning was a tough pill to swallow, not to mention betrayal, rejection, his attempted execution . . .

What he said was, “I believe this is holly anyway, so that’s bad luck for neither of us.” What he meant was _What did you mean by picking this? You know plants, you could have grown your own mistletoe or holly or ivy or whatever you wanted. Why did you pick holly? Why a plastic one? Do you intend to trap me?_

He knew the answer to most of them, but he couldn’t help but ask. Or -- not ask.

But Crowley had been right; he was overthinking this. Most likely, Crowley saw it for sale somewhere when he was just going about his business and picked it up on a whim. He probably kept it in his pocket for days, weeks maybe, wondering if the gag was worth it or if Aziraphale would turn him down or when the right time to pull it out was.

Aziraphale was not an idiot, after all. He’d known Crowley since the beginning (little b, although they likely met in the Beginning too) and knew, generally, how he worked. It was just that they way they worked wasn’t always compatible, and it often escaped their minds to even consider what the other might think. In realistic terms, anyway. Most of it was just worry.

( _Do you intend to trap me_ ? when Aziraphale knew good and well that Crowley would never, that this was a pivotal step for the both of them, that he wasn’t the only one who constantly thought about _You go to fast for me_ and regretted it.)

Crowley laughed nervously. “You’re right. And it’s American holly at that.”

Aziraphale stepped closer, perhaps too close, closer that he could ever remember them being. Crowley, for his part, looked shocked and started sputtering, as he was wont to do when caught off guard, likely trying to get all of the thoughts in his head out at once.

“Well, no one had to die for it at least.”

Crowley looked confused, even as Aziraphale leaned the rest of the way forward and kissed him -- closed mouth, very chaste, just as he’d seen couples do across the centuries.

“Wait, you mean _Baldur_?” Crowley demanded the moment they parted.

Aziraphale laughed.

“You know Baldur isn’t real right?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s about as real as anything else humans believe in.”

Crowley blinked at him, astonished. “Was that . . . I’m sorry, angel, was that _blasphemy_?”

“Yes, I suppose it was.”

Crowley laughed, startled, and tossed the plastic holly over his shoulder. “Well, we can’t be keeping that around, then, if you’re gonna go around _blaspheming_.”

Aziraphale always looked to the past: What could he learn from his mistakes? How could he avoid x consequence or y action? To the point that he looked for evidence in memories that held no relevance.

What Aziraphale wanted to say but didn’t (because perhaps it was a bit too forward, even after all of this -- he needed time, and they needed to talk, and he needed to self-reflect, perhaps) was that maybe it was time to make some new traditions.


End file.
